Social

Social explains how our innate drive to build social connections is the primary driver behind our behavior and explores ways we can use this knowledge to our advantage.

Do you remember the first time someone rejected you? Maybe it was your first crush or someone you thought you were best friends with on the playground. Whatever the situation was, you probably remember how crushed you were.

Rejection hurts. Breakups are really hard to move past. Why is this? It’s because our brains naturally encourage us to be social. And the pain that rejection causes actually causes pain as real as physical pain.

In a study, Lieberman was actually able to prove that this pain is physically real.

He had participants play a virtual game while hooked up to an fMRI where they would pass a ball around to two other players. What they didn’t know is that the other two people were avatars. Their programming made them stop passing it to the participant after a certain point. Surprisingly, this generated a strong emotional response. When they compared the fMRI to the scan of someone in physical pain, it was remarkably similar.

Social pain can be so physically real that it is, in fact, possible to die of a broken heart.

Being able to cooperate with other people is all but essential to our success as humans. While some people may do better at this than others, most humans have the capability to work together, and to a certain point read each other’s minds.

No, I don’t mean psychic readings. We have a unique ability to discern what other people are feeling or thinking based on what we perceive. This helps us better understand each other and figure out the thoughts behind why people do things. This act is called mentalizing.

An example of this is when we wave our hand up to let a bus driver know it’s time for us to get out. It helps the driver understand, without you telling them, that you are thinking you need to get out.

Interestingly, this trait is such a big part of our wiring that we even apply it to things that aren’t human.

In a study, participants were shown a clip of a circle and two triangles moving around for a short period. When they were asked to talk about what they watched, the people came up with emotional storylines— for a few moving shapes. Some things that they said were that one triangle was flirting with the circle, or that the triangle was being a bully!

This goes to show that the tendency to mentalize is very powerful.